


Strike the Match

by dairyme



Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Asphyxiation, Dubious Consent, F/M, Knifeplay, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Restraint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-08
Updated: 2015-01-08
Packaged: 2018-03-06 18:02:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3143540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dairyme/pseuds/dairyme
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>She slid one hand up his chest until she could curl her fingers loosely round his neck. “From what I hear, this is how you would prefer to go.”</i>
  <br/>
  <i>His voice came out tight and breathy. “Not the exact circumstances I had imagined, to be honest with you.” </i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Strike the Match

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know which dark, twisted corner of my mind this came from, and maybe it would have been best if it had stayed there, but it's here now and we're just going to have to deal with it. 
> 
> Set between series 1 and 2, with vague references to episode 10.

When she entered the room he had already been subdued, seated on the edge of the bed while one of her men secured the rope binding his hands behind his back. If he had been putting up a struggle before she had arrived he gave no sign of it now. He had been staring at her, to the exclusion of everything else, from the moment she walked in. 

“You,” he said.

She smiled. “Whose belongings did you think you were looking through?”

He continued to stare at her, but he seemed admirably composed given his circumstances. “You left Paris.”

“For a time,” she said smoothly. “And now I have returned.”

She knew him, of course, though it had taken her a moment to recall where from. Theirs was an acquaintance based mostly on reputation: his as a musketeer, as a man spoken of in hushed, giggling tones by the women who frequented Paris’s salons, and as her former husband’s closest associate; hers as a murderer, liar, and tormentor of the very same.

He must hate her, for all this, yet though she searched, she couldn’t see it in his eyes. 

She waved her hand at the two men who were now standing, rather uselessly, by the bed. “Leave me with him. Make sure no one comes along this corridor.” 

She followed them to the door, closing it behind them. She knew his gaze had not left her the entire time. She could feel the weight of it on her skin. 

“Why are you here?”

The click of the lock as she turned the key was satisfyingly loud. That sound alone would have been enough to shake the nerves of other men – she knew from experience – but she doubted such a trick would be enough in this particular case. She turned and approached him, without haste. “Monsieur Aramis, isn’t it? I don’t believe we were ever formally introduced.”

“Why come back now?” His voice was annoyingly steady, as of a man who had not noticed the gravity of his situation, or, more likely, had the foolhardy confidence that he would somehow find his way out of it. 

She stopped in front of him, an arm’s length away, but close enough that he had to look up to see her face. Her expression – the soft, cold smile, the unwavering eye contact – was a carefully designed mask. 

“After everything,” he insisted. “After he showed you such mercy…”

She slapped him. It was sudden, instinctive, and unplanned on her part, though she was sure he was the more surprised of the two of them; not just by the action, but by the sheer strength behind it. 

It was a peculiarly feminine assault, a slap, but she had never accepted the wisdom that it had to be any less damaging for that. He would have been slapped by women before, she had no doubt, but they would have been little more than chastisements. Nothing so petty lay behind her own actions. She had meant it to hurt, and she was confident it had. It took strength to hold a man down while you slit his throat, and she wanted him to know that it was strength she possessed.

“Mercy,” she spat, anger seeping into her words against her will, “is that what you’d call it?”

The force of the blow had knocked his head to the side and it was a few seconds before he righted himself, blinking in shock. The mark of her palm bloomed red on his cheek. 

Her own anger faded, reined in with such practiced ease she was barely conscious of doing it. 

She went to the large chest of drawers and opened the bottom one, pushing aside layers of clothing until she found the knife. 

She made no effort to conceal it as she turned back to him. His gaze dropped to the glint of the blade briefly but returned to her face before she reached him, and his expression betrayed nothing. 

She came close enough for her skirts to brush his knees. He tilted his head back to look at her. 

She thought he might speak, and she was genuinely curious as to what he might say: perhaps question her further, as if he did not sit moments from death, or perhaps attempt to persuade her to change her mind, or even break and beg for his life. 

A memory squeezed itself past her defences, fleeting, before she could smother it: Athos, her blade against his throat, his eyes wet with tears, begging…

She pressed the tip of the blade experimentally against his stomach. She would not be able to do much damage from this angle, unable to put enough weight behind the knife to pierce the leather of his coat, and they both knew it. She gave the blade a firm push anyway, enough for him to feel the pressure of it through his clothes. A small, sharp intake of breath, only noticeable because she was watching him so carefully. Otherwise he did not move. 

“Are you not afraid to die?” She kept her voice silky, managing not to betray her irritation.

His mouth twitched into a tiny smile. “Perhaps if you didn’t seem so uncertain about whether or not to kill me.” 

She dragged the knife point further up his chest, over his coat, past the exposed edge of his shirt, until it rested on the bare skin at his sternum. “No, I am quite sure I will kill you,” she said, taking a small step back, which allowed her to sink a bit more of her weight behind the blade, “only undecided as to how I will do it.”

He flinched slightly, a brief creasing of the skin around his eyes, and she noticed the blade tip had nicked his skin, a tiny red bead forming at the spot. But he did not fear death, she realised – no man could hide that fear so fully, not from her, who knew how to look for it. Or else it was that he did not fear _her_ , did not believe she could be the one to take his life - and it was that, the arrogance of it, that frustrated her the most. 

“I am trying to decide how best to leave you,” she murmured. “How I would most like you to be found.” She lifted the knife, angled the edge of it underneath his chin. “How to present this particular gift to my husband.”

Ah, there it was: a flash of fear for the first time – he wasn’t immune after all. Fear, not that he might die, but at how his death might affect his friend. 

Every man has his weakness.

“I’m sure I could make it so that he will be the one who finds you.” She felt him swallow against the blade. “It would be worth it.”

His shoulders tensed, the first sign that he might be fighting an instinct to struggle, to jerk away from her. 

With her free hand she efficiently unfastened the buttons of his coat, pushing it aside, then returning the blade to his stomach. She could push it in easily now, his shirt providing little resistance. It wouldn’t take much, a single, deep wound, and then leave him to slowly bleed to death in the locked room. She looked in his eyes and knew he had come to the same conclusion. 

She smiled, waiting for the defeat to show in his face, that perfect, addictive moment of triumph. But it never came. His gaze was steely and resigned: ready to face death with all the bravery of a soldier. Her smile faltered. 

With sudden violence she shoved him onto his back and climbed onto the bed, straddling his hips as best she could with the inconvenience of her billowing skirts. She leaned right over him, one hand bunched in the fabric at his shoulder, the other still pressing the point of the blade to his abdomen. 

It had the desired effect. He was thrown off guard, uncertain now as to her motives. She leaned down until their faces were very close. “Have you nothing to say?”

She could feel his quickened breathing, each inhale pushing up against the knife, and each exhale warm against her face. His continued silence was his victory – but the way he could no longer hold eye contact was hers.

She sat back and placed the knife on the blankets, away from them but within reach. His gaze flicked to it. She could see him recalculating his options, and she waited, giving him enough time to realise that he remained just as helpless as before. She settled over his hips, aware that every shift of her weight would press his bound hands uncomfortably between his body and the bed. 

She slid one hand up his chest until she could curl her fingers loosely round his neck. “From what I hear, this is how you would prefer to go.”

His voice came out tight and breathy. “Not the exact circumstances I had imagined, to be honest with you.” 

Her own heart rate had increased – she could feel it thudding down her arms, to the fingers at his neck, down her legs, into her belly. 

He was handsome, she saw that, saw what other women found attractive in him, but it wasn’t that which excited her. It was the tension in him, the way his pulse raced under her thumb when she pressed it beneath his jaw, and the way his eyes fluttered closed, just for a moment, when she moved against him.

It was not that she thought herself capable of making any man abandon their principles using only the power of her – albeit considerable – charms. And she had seen no need, nor had felt any desire to seduce him. But she knew it when she saw it: he was aroused despite himself, much as she was.

She should kill him: take the knife and do what she had done more times than she cared to count. And perhaps she _would_ send word to Athos, as she had threatened, though her intention behind the threat had primarily been to disturb the man before her; that his death would cause Athos grief had merely been an attractive side effect.

Only now she was reconsidering the situation; there was temptation here, temptation far stronger than the mere potential for sexual pleasure. She had an opportunity, and she was finding it difficult to resist. 

Betrayal hurt more deeply than grief ever could. 

She looked down at him, tense and still and half-hard, she knew, and almost laughed. 

She moved against him again, a slow, undulating rhythm. He sucked in a quick breath. It might have been nothing more than the physical discomfort of his position, but for the unmistakeable faint pink flush creeping up his neck. She traced it with one hand, the spot of blood on his chest following the path of her palm in a thin smear. Then she dragged her nails back down, along the strip of bare skin not covered by his shirt. “Are you blushing, monsieur?”

He looked confused more than anything, but behind that she knew his mind would be working fast – trying to predict her actions, planning his own in response. Well let him plan, she thought. She knew him already, had seen all she needed to in a few brief glimpses. Her understanding of men was greater than his of women, of that she was confident. She had, after all, known other men like him. And he had never known any women like her. 

She hitched her skirts up until only the silk of her undergarments lay between her skin and his trousers, so that she could feel him properly, and be sure of his responses. And he _was_ responding, hard between her legs. 

His hips pushing briefly towards her, and his eyes squeezed shut for a long moment. When he opened them again he kept his gaze carefully lowered. “Madame,” he said, his voice quiet and rough-edged, “if you would release my hands that I might touch you…”

She slapped him again, hard enough that if he had been upright it might have unbalanced him. He gave an involuntary and entirely satisfying grunt at the impact. His head remained turned to the side, his unmarked cheek against the bedspread, gasping like she had punched him in the stomach. 

“That’s for thinking me stupid.” She reached forward, slid her fingers into his hair and tugged until he faced her. 

The chain of the cross he wore had gathered at the base of his neck, the cross itself fallen on the sheets. She lay her palm over it, pressing her hand into the mattress until the chain pulled tight across his throat. 

He caught her eye, alarmed, his breath coming shallow and uneven in a combination of panic and arousal. She pressed harder, watching the metal whiten the skin beneath it. He closed his eyes. 

Letting go of his hair but keeping her hand on the cross, she reached beneath her skirts and unfastened his belt and trousers, pushing them aside, before settling on him again, letting him feel her wetness.

She leaned forward and placed her hand on his neck, fitting the V of her thumb and forefinger over his windpipe with only the lightest pressure. The gesture was enough in itself to make his muscles tense, a quick, ineffectual jerk of his shoulders that did nothing to dislodge her hold. She wondered, in fact, if it was intended as a serious attempt at all, or if it was merely a play at reluctance, for show, a last ditch scramble for dignity, because as soon as she constricted her hold just a fraction he seemed to sag into it. There was still a slight tremble of panic in his limbs, but he made no real attempts to buck her off, which she suspected he must – even like this – have the strength to do. 

She tightened her hold further, not quite squeezing. His gaze met hers for a moment, before dropping to her breasts, then down her body, to where her skirts covered them both. 

With each rapid exhale she tightened her hold a fraction. His eyes were beginning to go glassy and unfocused, but his hips were moving now in short thrusts, and she could feel his cock twitch against her. 

Again, she contemplated killing him like this; taking hold of him with both hands, pressing her thumbs down in earnest until he lost consciousness, until the pulse beneath her fingertips faded to nothing. She wondered if he would let her do it, too, or if at the last moment some self-preservative instinct he seemed to have so far repressed would kick in. 

She liked the idea that he would struggle, fearful, but she could not guarantee such a satisfactory ending. Why risk it, when this way she had already won?

She was in danger of losing herself, she realised, and consciously pulled back her focus. Her own breath caught and she could feel the hot flush of her cheeks as she rubbed herself against him, chasing each delicious twinge of pleasure. Briefly she was overwhelmed by the temptation to have him inside her – it wouldn’t take much – but the effort and mess would be too great, when she could tell he was already too close to make it worth her while.

She leaned her weight on the arm that held him, his breath stuttering. He looked at her, unfocused, hovering on the brink of unconsciousness, and that was a visceral pleasure: that he might think, in that moment, that he was to die, and for him to _know_ that it was she who would be responsible. 

Then she released her grip, and as he gasped for air reached under her skirts and into his underclothes – two, three quick strokes and he was coming, his head tipped back and a low, ragged groan forced from his lips. 

She slid off the bed onto her feet, leaving him panting out the end of his orgasm, disorientated and sluggish. 

She crossed the room, returning to the chest of drawers. There was a looking glass on top of it, and she glanced at her reflection. The pinkness was already almost completely gone from her cheeks, and she was otherwise mostly unruffled. She took a moment to pat a loose hairpin back into place before opening the bottom drawer. From it she retrieved an embroidered silk handkerchief, a tied bundle of letters, and a shawl in which she loosely wrapped them. She tucked the bundle under one arm, and wiped her fingers delicately with the handkerchief. 

She stood at the foot of the bed, but when he did not lift his head to look at her she came to the side, forcing herself into his eyeline. 

“What a picture you make,” she said, smiling. She surveyed him – he was satisfyingly bedraggled, his trousers left open obscenely, come drying on his shirt, the faint red lines on his chest and the marks of her fingers on his neck that she had high hopes would bruise rather badly. She reached down to stroke a curl of hair from his forehead, and she could see the effort it took him not to flinch away. “Still nothing to say for yourself?”

He kept his gaze firmly lowered. She leaned over him, close enough that she could feel his breath tickle her chest, and retrieved the knife. She straightened and slipped it into the shawl under her arm. 

She returned to the foot of the bed, only pausing to tuck the end of the handkerchief safely into the waistband of his underclothes.

He had craned his neck up to see what she was doing, and she managed to catch his eye with a smile. “So there won’t be any doubt who it was,” she said. “Just in case you decided not to mention it yourself.”

She went to the door and unlocked it, before allowing herself one final look over her shoulder. “When he finds you, do give my warmest regards.”

His expression at her words was worth far more than any he would have worn as she took his life.


End file.
